“ ‘Tis probable and palpable to thinking.”
(Othello, act 1, sc.2)
Comment. With timing seemingly impossible in its accuracy, on the anniversary day of the September 11 tragedy, another tragedy occurs, germane in spirit, smaller in scope but equal in significance.
How is it possible not to draw parallels, not only on the timing but on what goes on and went on behind the scenes?
The slain Ambassador Stevens, as per the secret cables published by WikiLeaks, held frequent meetings with Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi, whom he earlier described as an “engaging and charming interlocutor.”
Then last year, just before the US and NATO launched their war for regime change in Libya, Stevens was named US “liaison to the opposition” and dispatched with a US team to Benghazi. At the time a State Department spokesman said he would “explore ways to open funding spigots for an opposition movement.”
In the ensuing military intervention, Washington and its European allies provided arms, training and heavy air support for the so-called rebels. The support included significant numbers of Islamist fighters, some of whom had worked in Afghanistan or Iraq. If the attack on the consulate was carried out by these elements, the US ambassador and the other Americans were likely killed with arms and ammunition supplied by NATO. Or at least it seems ‘palpable to thinking’.
From what one can gather from the outside and discounting the reports of the corporate media, the situation is not at all settled in Lybia. Gaddafi was respected and without NATO direct intervention he could not have been eliminated.
Readers may recall the televised reports of the Secretary of State laughing while commenting on Gaddafi’s assassination and saying, “We came, we saw and he died.” This is a comment that few people would make even on an animal. And yet the utterer of this remarkable quote represents the American people abroad. It is ‘probable and palpable to thinking’ that to murder and to laugh at the murdered may not trigger amicable reactions in the people whose leader was the victim. Though mass behavior cannot be accurately predicted it may be reasonably anticipated.
Yet another consideration is the legitimate suspect that the business of the insulting video, that triggered the latest events, was another ‘inside job’, with intents similar to those carried out thanks to the original September 11 set-up.
All in all it is “probable and palpable to thinking” that we can expect more wars, invasions, drones, renditions, secret prisons, tortures etc. all done in the name of democracy, because, as we know, “they envy our freedoms.”
And, as it seems now a matter of course, given the extremely secret nature of the information on the doings of the State Department, the CIA and the Pentagon (but was it not the accusation levied against the Soviet Union?), the truth on this episode will remain a matter of conflicting speculations and grist for sensation writers, imaginative theorists and Hollywood producers.
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In the play. Brabantio is dismayed at his daughter Desdemona who eloped with Othello. What is ‘palpable to thinking’ , according to Brabantio, is that Othello somehow bewitched her.
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